Hot Topics:

Police: Driver thought child was a neighbor

By Mitchell Byars, Camera Staff Writer

Posted:
08/28/2014 09:12:31 AM MDT

Updated:
08/28/2014 04:42:26 PM MDT

Reports of a suspicious driver talking to young students near Erie's Red Hawk Elementary School on Wednesday turned out to be a false alarm, as police this morning completed their investigation and said it's believed both cases involved mistaken identity.

Police officials said that, with the public's assistance, they spoke to the owner of the vehicle in question and the families of both students.

The first incident took place at 11:40 a.m. Wednesday after kindergarten at Red Hawk Elementary -- 1500 Telleen Ave. -- finished for the day, according to Erie police. A young girl was riding her bicycle home with her mother south on Meller Street near Stanley Drive when the mother noticed a car pull over the curb near her daughter.

The mother told police she initially thought there were children in the car talking to her daughter but then noticed there was no one in the vehicle but a male driver. The man drove off south on Meller.

The second incident happened at 4 p.m. A female fourth-grade student told police that she was walking home from Red Hawk Elementary on Jasper Road when a man in a vehicle passed her and looked at her for several moments, making her uncomfortable. The girl turned around and went back to the school.

After 10 minutes, the girl began to walk home again and saw the same driver near the intersection of Jasper Road and Meller Street. The driver asked the student if she wanted a ride, but the girl ignored him and the man drove off. The girl then ran back to the school and notified staff, who reported the incident to police.

But Erie police Lt. Lee Mathis said the man was actually trying to pick his grandsons up from the school. The man's grandsons had actually biked home from school, and the man thought the fourth grade female was a neighbor and tried to see if she knew where his grandsons were, Mathis said.

Mathis said the man and his family saw the media reports and came in to talk to police.

Police said in the other incident, the driver of the car never tried to talk to the young girl and police said the mother reported the incident because she had seen the earlier press release on the suspicious incident.

Erie police had put extra patrols in the area as a result of the incident.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story